This page is specifically for the Regional Hospital Administrators, Regional Sub-deans and the Addenbrookes Paediatrics Department Administrators and Managers to provide information about the Undergraduate Clinical Supervisor processes.
The information here is intended to assist anyone who is involved in any stage of the application, appointment and appraisal of Regional Clinical Supervisors and Paediatric Clinical Supervisors.
Definitions
Regional Clinical Supervisors
This refers to undergraduate clinical supervisors who are appointed in any of our regional partner hospitals within the East Anglia region. The hospitals are:
Bedford, Hinchingbrooke, Ipswich, Lister, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn, Peterborough, West Suffolk
Please note that Papworth comes under the Cambridge region so applicants can apply to be a Cambridge-based undergraduate clinical supervisor if based in Addenbrookes or Papworth.
Paediatric Clinical Supervisors
This refers to undergraduate clinical supervisors whose specialism is Paediatrics AND they are based at Addenbrookes only. At the time of writing only undergraduate students in Year 4 of the clinical course at the University of Cambridge can be allocated a Paediatric Clinical Supervisor. Paediatric clinical supervisors are not appointed at any other regional hospital.
Applications stage
The Clinical Supervisor Application Form https://www.medschl.cam.ac.uk/education/clinical-supervisors/application-form/has been designed to be used by all applicants to the post of undergraduate clinical supervisor whether they are Cambridge-based (Addenbrookes or Papworth), in Addenbrookes Paediatrics, or in the School of Clinical Medicine’s regional partner hospital trusts. The applicant chooses their current hospital location from the drop-down menu on the online form. If Cambridge-based a further question to determine whether the applicant is in Paediatrics or not is confirmed. The application will then be e-mailed to the appropriate regional administrator or Addenbrookes Paediatric Administrator (it can be sent to multiple e-mail addresses of the regional administrators’/paediatric administrators’ choosing).
The only exception to this is the Year 1 & 2 Cambridge Graduate Course (CGC) Clinical Supervisors – they will continue to apply directly to the West Suffolk Hospital as they are doing at the moment. For more information about this please contact Emma Barber-Lomax (emma.barber-lomax@wsh.nhs.uk).
Recruitment stage
The Regional Sub-dean or the Addenbrookes Paediatric Department Manager will usually review the applications and decide on which applicants should be accepted for the post of Regional Clinical Supervisor or Paediatric Clinical Supervisor (please see above for definitions).
Appointment stage
The Regional Administrator or the Addenbrookes Paediatric Department Administrator will usually contact the successful applicants and appoint them to a group of students. The administrator will inform the newly appointed clinical supervisor of the student names and e-mail addresses of their group and will contact the students to let them know who their regional clinical supervisor will be and to inform them that the supervisor will be in touch with the students to arrange supervisions.
Please see below about Equality & Diversity training. On informing the newly appointed clinical supervisor of their group, the Regional Administrator or the Addenbrookes Paediatric Department Administrator should request that the clinical supervisor undertakes the necessary training and the clinical supervisor should send a copy of their certificate back to the relevant Administrator for them to keep it on file.
Naming a Regional/Paediatric Clinical Supervisor Representative
The Regional Sub-dean/Addenbrookes Paediatric Department manager should appoint one of their clinical supervisors to be the named representative for the group. This person should be identified as the representative when the Administrator informs the Clinical School. The representative is appointed so that the Senior Clinical Superviors can liaise with them on behalf of their region/department about Clinical Supervisor events and news. The representative should work with the Senior Supervisors to develop a network and keep the other regional/paediatric clinical supervisors updated with supervisor developments across the region.
The Senior Supervisors are experienced supervisors who have generally done some educational development and are appointed annually to help oversee and develop the supervisor programme.
All supervisors (regional and Cambridge based) are invited to attend the termly supervisor forum.
Informing the Clinical School of the appointments – Regional Clinical Supervisors and Paediatric Clinical Supervisors
The Clinical School needs to have specific information about each appointed Regional Clinical Supervisor and Paediatric Clinical Supervisor. This is for several reasons:
- So that each regional and paediatric clinical supervisor can be enrolled to the Clinical Supervisors (Undergraduate) Moodle pages. This will enable all clinical supervisors to obtain information about what topics to teach and when in their supervisions.
- So that each regional and paediatric clinical supervisor can be added to the e-mail distribution list to receive e-mails from the School of Clinical Medicine, Senior Supervisors, Clinical Supervisor Termly Newsletters and other Clinical School Communications.
In order to facilitate this, each regional hospital, usually via the Regional Administrator or the Paediatric Department administrator at Addenbrookes, is requested to send the School of Clinical Medicine information about each regional/paediatric clinical supervisor.
Regional and Paediatric Administrators please send an Excel spreadsheet as below (sorted by Surname of Clinical Supervisor) and submit it to the School of Clinical Medicine (clinicalsupervisors@medschl.cam.ac.uk). Please also inform us when clinical supervisors leave the post.
PLEASE NOTE: This does include the Year 1 & 2 CGC clinical supervisors appointed at West Suffolk Hospital as they also need to be given the system accesses and opportunities to apply for the IFME programme (details below).
Please note: the Clinical School does not need to have copies of any of the
Regional and Paediatric application forms.
The above spreadsheet should be filled in every time there is a new clinical supervisor and is of particular importance after the August hospital rotation when there is large turnover of clinical supervisors as this data will provide the verifications necessary for IFME Group 2 applications (i.e. confirmation that someone is a Clinical Supervisor newly appointed in the Michaelmas Term). Please also inform us of those who have left the post of clinical supervisor.
Equality & Diversity Training
It is a University requirement that all supervisors whether Cambridge-based, in Paediatrics or in each Regional hospital have evidence of up-to-date Equality and Diversity training (i.e. within the last 3 years). The School of Clinical Medicine will request copies of all Cambridge-based Clinical Supervisors’ training certificates and may request to see copies of regional clinical supervisors certificates from the relevant administrator.
On informing the newly appointed clinical supervisor of their group information the Regional Administrator or the Addenbrookes Paediatric Department Administrator should request that the clinical supervisor undertakes the necessary training and sends their certificate back to them.
Please note that the Clinical School does not require to see any of the Equality & Diversity certificates of the regional/paediatric clinical supervisors. The Regional Administrator/Paediatric Administrator should keep these details on file for each clinical supervisor as it is a requirement and this information may be requested by the Clinical School as and when necessary.
On-line Equality and Diversity Training
Please direct your clinical supervisors to the following training courses and request a copy of their certificate once complete. They need only choose one from the list below:
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY COURSE – http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/hr/equality/training/online/ – this course requires a Raven Password (University password – therefore requires a Hermes account)
NHS COURSE – E-Learning For Health – https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Login?returnURL=%2FmyElearning%2FIndex%3FHierarchyId%3D0_37759_37857%26programmeId%3D37759
– this course requires you to register as an NHS employee with an NHS e-mail address.
DOCTORS.NET COURSE – http://www.doctors.net.uk/ecme/wfrmNewIntro.aspx?moduleid=1487
– this course requires you to be registered with Doctors.net.uk
The Integrated Foundations of Medical Education Programme
The Clinical School’s Integrated Foundations of Medical Education (IFME) programme is a training programme to help those who are providing teaching to develop their teaching skills. Places on this highly popular programme are protected for newly appointed clinical supervisors.
The Clinical School recommends that the regional hospitals and the Addenbrookes Paediatric department sends to newly appointed clinical supervisors at the time of appointment details of the webpages for the IFME programme so that applicants may apply on time. The Administrators may wish to highlight the closing date for newly appointed clinical supervisors (appointed in Michaelmas Term).
IFME applications for newly appointed clinical supervisors (appointed during the August rotation) will be open from August 16th to 17th September 2021 (or until we reach capacity for the programme).
Appraisals
To facilitate quality assurance of the undergraduate supervisor programme, student questionnaire surveys via an anonymous Google Form are undertaken twice a year (in Michaelmas and Easter term). The data from the Michaelmas term survey is individualised into feedback reports which the Clinical School will disseminate to the Regional Administrators/Paediatric Administrator for the Regional Sub-deans/Addenbrookes Paediatric Department manager to carry out the annual appraisals which are usually a 15 minute face-to-face meeting to go through the feedback and discuss any issues or staff development ambitions. A copy of the feedback is given to the clinical supervisor for their postgraduate training portfolio.
The Easter term reports are also sent to Regional/Paediatric Administrators but no appraisal is undertaken then.
Key facts
Administrators responsibilities:
- Collate applications (applications themselves should not be sent to the Clinical School)
- Send appointment and contact information to clinical supervisors and students (these should not be sent to the Clinical School)
- Inform the Clinical School of all newly appointed clinical supervisor details in the requested Excel spreadsheet format by the date given
- Send Equality & Diversity training information to newly appointed supervisors and collect certificates from the clinical supervisors (these should not be sent to the Clinical School)
- Send IFME information (directions to the Clinical School IFME web pages) to newly appointed clinical supervisors highlighting the closing date for IFME applications for this group
Sub-deans/Paediatric Department Managers responsibilities:
- Review clinical supervisor applications and appoint as necessary
- Name a clinical supervisor representative for the region/department
- Carry out annual appraisals of all clinical supervisors
Thank you for your co-operation
The Clinical School is very grateful to the Regional Administrators and Sub-deans/Addenbrookes Paediatric Administrators and Manager for their co-operation and support in providing the requested information in the requested format and by the dates stipulated.
This facilitates a smooth operation to ensure that all undergraduate clinical supervisors, where-ever they are based within the region are provided with the information they require at the right time to enable them to carry out their role.
Anyone who has further questions about the Clinical Supervisor processes can view the Clinical Supervisor Frequently Asked Questions page on this site. This is primarily for the clinical supervisors themselves but may answer any questions Regional/Paediatric Administrators may have.
Alternatively please do not hesitate to contact clinicalsupervisors@medschl.cam.ac.uk if there is anything you are unsure of about the processes given here.
